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Steinman and colleagues (1) describe an explicit promotional campaign by gabapentin's vendor that included efforts to inflate the literature on the drug “by contracting with medical education companies to develop review papers, original articles, and letters to the editor” that were favorable to gabapentin and then hiring physicians and pharmacists to be authors on these papers. Knowing that this was done makes the literature on gabapentin very difficult to interpret.

A PubMed search (performed on 25 August 2006) of gabapentin limited to randomized, controlled trials found 148 trials. Primary research literature includes several positive trials of gabapentin for hot flashes, bipolar disorder, alcohol withdrawal, pain syndromes, spasticity, the restless legs syndrome, chronic headache, and acquired nystagmus, among myriad other conditions. Limiting the search to clinical trials yielded 285 studies of gabapentin for conditions ranging from hiccups to priapism.